How to wind a watch
by Future Mrs Morgan
Summary: Can you tell a love story from one man's watch? Edward can and this is his life with Bella, through the years. EXB WatchWard One-Shot


**AN: I am not Stephanie Meyer, Twilight is hers sadly. I hope that you read and enjoy. I have not published a story in years and have grown up a lot since my last ones. I hope that you will love it/ hate it- Just let me know. How to improve, what to change. This is all about you. **

**All My Love,**

**Enjoy. **

**How to wind a watch**

_Summary:_

_Can you tell a love story from one man's watch? Edward can and this is his life with Bella. EXB Watch Ward One-shot._

The reflection on the glass is foggy, it makes Edward think his image is distorted and in his old age that he is reminiscent of Munch's 'The Scream.' From the day Edward had cracked the glass in a screaming fit with Bella, from her being too close with a tall man whose name is lost in the ages, in which the making up lasted for hours, he had never been able to see his own face clearly. Scratches like cracks in the pavement appeared when looking from above and he always regretted throwing it against the wall.

Bella never made Edward take it to get fixed though, she maintained that the chaotic claw marks that dominated the face of the watch were a reminder to him, to keep in that green eyed beast. Mainly, to only let it out in the bedroom. He grew to like the deep gouges on his watch; they reminded him of his honeymoon with Bella in which they visited the sinking fields of the Bovenkerker Polder. He especially liked the memory because he remembers when it rained, they were unable to leave their cabin for days.

His eldest brother Emmett always thought that the ancient symbols smothered the machinery; yet, Edward always said that they were a metaphor for his life, in which there were shallow forces trying to pulverise through their happiness and were not strong enough to crack through the organic material.

The smooth sterling silver bezel lies delicately unpunished in contrast to the distress that was visible on the sapphire crystal dial. Edward liked to think that was his little angel-the first and only child that Bella and he had to bury; watching over him and making sure everything would turn out ok for her daddy and mummy, and brothers and sisters. The rounded ring perched flawlessly, it was precise and was accentuated by the lack of typical traits that accompanied such a device as a watch.

Furthermore standing in solidarity was a single crown, its rough edges have been plagued by discoloration from constant laxidascical treatment, despite its bright crimson stamp of handle with care. Edward noted that Bella always liked this piece of his watch the best, she thought it was a symbol of how the tough could truly live on forever, much like her father who had finally retired the year before.

A gleaming white main plate now aged and worn down with fatigue. Its colour once painted white, has peeled back through the years with maps of water stains now spreading like oil on water. Edward enjoys thinking this in those early hours of the mornings as he drives his kids to swim meets and soccer practice, how he used to be roaring with youth and now it is the simple things that made his chest swell with an indescribable happiness,like the water stains his bloodline has carried on.

His older brother's wife Alice, begs him to throw it away. She claims the numbers that once stood loud and proud and shadows of themselves, flinching at the ideas of their former lives, their faded edges are surrounded by a bruised white and covered by a thick impenetrable screen. He has never agreed.

Instead Edward remembers the look on Bella's face when she told him she had been saving to give him a watch and when she bought this one he promised never to let it go. She had never bought anyone anything before; her mother made sure to instil into her that men could never be trusted and only wanted one thing, which wasn't gift's. He never told his girl he went to visit her mother, told her to tell Bella she was happy for them and then get out of their lives. Edward never wanted to wake up to Bella's muted sobs in the middle of the night again, and he didn't.

The silver was a discoloured colour, it had the charred effect of his overdone steaks. However the metal surrounding the face is like the ocean on first beach without wind, smooth and perfectly level. He taught his only daughter to surf on a day like that while his younger boys and their mother played in the rock pools.

His family constantly likes to badger him that one day on the job; saving lives, his precious clock will stop. He doesn't tell them that it has, many times. Nor does he tell Bella that he cost of getting it fixed exceeds their electricity bills some days. It is his watch. Edward thinks that the shattered face and withering appearance maintain a refined and statuesque prescense- that's what Bella told him when he found his first grey hair.

The deep brown bracelet is rumpled like unironed scrubs- when he and Bella were too poor to afford an iron and yet it remains stable and secure. Soft to the touch it reeks of hospital layered with whiffs of pungent natural body oils, paramount when Edward works up a sweat with his wife those nights he isn't on call. The potent chocolate shade is handsome and rich, appearing to born yesterday as opposed to its reality (or so his wife tells him.) Nevertheless he can still see Bella's nails indentation, where she clenched when their children came into this world.

Tanned stitching sits in an assembly line. Spirited soldiers on a mission are poised and ready for duty, with the occasion rookie coming apart at the seams. As if his soldiers were little and their bedtime routine was taking orders from their lovable captain. The comrades highlight the gaping lone ranger as opposed to the masses of flawless hole punches that sit patiently waiting for the buckle to finally choose them. To this very day he has nurses trying to woo and flirt with him, still he has only has and always will have eyes for one brown eyed brunette. It's why Edward doesn't change the leather band to another colour, because it is so much like his girl.

The beating clock shudders with every oscillation ad wheezes, yet it honours its job and remains sturdy. An irritating tick of a woodpecker occurs every second, minute, every full circle. As evening approaches it splutters, choosing to take its time to reach the robust sound. Some do not make it. They scream and shout nearly there and lacking energy they choose to move past the obstacle, to fulfil the cycle.

When Edward gets mad at Bella for leaving wet towels on the bathroom floor he thinks of his hatred of laundry and like the watch he picks his battles. He remembers saving his energy for the men that thought they could take his wife away, the screams as she bore him their children- the ones that lived and the one that didn't. The weekly trips to the cemetery, first for their child, then her father, then both of his parents. For the teenage rebellion, the quick getaways, the date nights.

It is when Edward hears the wheezing of his watch, he remembers that he and Bella never had that exhaustion, they never had the itch to quit. They were always happy with each other and like with the day they meet, seven or even seventy years into marriage he loved her like it was the first day.

He doesn't remember not talking like Jasper and Alice, or screaming like Rosalie and Emmet, instead he remembers how tight they held each other and how they whispered words of love to each other, while their children giggled at the sight of their parents love. Edward thinks back to the day his daughter and her friends walked in on him slow dancing with Bella, simply because she wanted to and how after, his little girl hugged him so hard for being 'the coolest.'

The temperature of the watch reads chilly, a touch spine tingling coolness. Much like the outside façade he puts onto strangers. The underside mass of the belly however a cosy warm that heats from the inside out, searing across the pale flesh until it warms him up.

And when it comes time to go, not now. But in many years, he will be buried with this watch because it is his and no one else's. It was Bella who told him that, after she gave him the greatest gift, on a rainy night in a motel room. She went out and brought the watch, told him that it represented her heart, which as always his.

_An elegant engraved script is on the underside of the watch. Through the gleaming and untarnished silver, faint as it was masterpiece he has caressed countless times, 'To Edward Love Bella,' can be read. _

**_AN: If you are reading this then you have read this one-shot and for that I thank you._**

**_Until next Time_**

**_All My Love. _**


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